It may be the Detroit area's No. 2 cable company, but it's No. 1 in
customer satisfaction.

In fact, says Mark Dineen, the general manager and a corporate vice
president of WOW Internet Cable and Phone, the biggest complaint he
gets is from people outside the service areas of 42 Detroit-area
communities who want WOW but can't get it.

Dineen's company was just rated No. 1 by cable TV subscribers in a
nationwide J.D. Power and Associates survey that measured customer
satisfaction. Comcast, the area's dominant cable provider, ranked
seventh. [.....]

WOW was founded in Colorado in 1999 and then moved to the Midwest in
2001 when it acquired the cable assets of Ameritech New Media. The
Colorado operation broke off from the main corporation and is operated
separately. [.....]

Two weeks ago, WOW rolled out one of the industry's most aggressive
bundled packages that includes digital telephone service. For $89.99 a
month, customers get cable television, basic Internet and unlimited
local and long distance telephone calls.

The system, which allows customers to keep their existing phone
numbers, uses Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to patch two-way
phone calls through the WOW network to the Sprint land-based network.

"This really is the future," says Dineen, 40, a resident of
Troy. "People get digital quality and all the caller ID and call
forwarding and 911 features they expect, but never have to pay long
distance fees."